


Vigilantism in the Time of Cholera

by cfcureton



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), olicity - Fandom
Genre: But I would enjoy punching COVID 19 in the nose for laughs, F/M, I don’t know what this is, I don’t want to make fun of what’s going on in the world, So I’ll get Oliver Queen to do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23440528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cfcureton/pseuds/cfcureton
Summary: Quarantine fics are inevitable now, aren’t they? So here’s mine. Set in early Season Two which, let’s face it, was prime OTA. The title was inspired by the book Love in the Time of Cholera. I haven’t read it, but I skimmed the synopsis oh-so briefly, and I can assure you it has ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with this story.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 103
Kudos: 247





	1. Chapter 1

One of the more interesting things Felicity had learned about John Diggle over the past year was that he was obsessed with the news. During their downtime in the Foundry—and despite the adventures the three of them got up to, there WAS a lot of downtime—Dig was constantly scrolling through the various news outlets, absorbing content. He was also into verbally sharing all the stuff he learned, until she used her loud voice that one time.

Eventually, for the sake of his eyesight—she had yet to convince Oliver that dungeon up lighting was not a cool trend—Felicity turned one of her monitors into a current headlines feed 24/7. John could hunker down in front of it and clean his guns while he followed the news of the world all he liked. 

“It’s getting worse, you know,” he said almost casually, standing at ease behind her chair like it was his job to watch over her when Oliver was top side. 

“What’s getting worse?”

“This virus. It’s gonna be a pandemic.”

Felicity shuddered. “I hate that word.”

“Pandemic? Or virus?”

She shot him a glare as familiar sounding feet jogged down the metal steps behind them. “Well now it’s both.”

“What are we talking about?” For all his brooding and solitary ways, Oliver didn’t like being left out of conversations. It was one of his more endearing qualities. Felicity spun around in her chair to face them.

John turned his head and watched Oliver approach. “That virus. It’s spreading fast. Most of Southeast Asia is already on lockdown. France and Germany will be closing their borders any minute. They say it’ll be in the States by the end of the week.”

Oliver stood and thought about that for a long moment, which was fine, it was totally fine to be a silent and introspective kind of guy, but did he have to do it while staring at her like she was the thing he was contemplating? It was happening more and more lately and it was starting to give her a complex.

“How far out are they from having a vaccine?” he asked.

Dig snorted, but not in a funny way. “Too far. It’ll be a year, easy, before it’s ready to deploy.”

Oliver finally changed his focus to a point above her head and snapped his bow up and back down, a move she had learned meant he was pissed there wasn’t more he could do. It was sexy, if you were the kind of girl who went for that sort of thing. Which she definitely was not.

“Keep an eye on it,” he said finally, turning away to rack the bow and start getting undressed. John and Felicity finished their own conversation with just a look.

———————————————-

It was an impulse buy; she was prone to them, despite her white-knuckled control over her meager adult finances. There were some things she couldn’t overcome, and being the daughter of Donna Smoak was sometimes one of them. 

The shelves were already looking bare in the mask and glove department, but miraculously one box remained. Felicity removed it from the shelf without snatching and studied it as if she was trying to make up her mind. As if this wasn’t the only reason she’d stopped by the pharmacy. The woman on the front of the box was modeling the full face mask while sweeping a bit of hair behind her ear coquettishly. With only her eyes and the top of her head visible, she still managed to look like the man of her dreams had just proposed. If only, Felicity thought with a snort. 

A middle aged woman appeared off her shoulder and looked sharply in her direction.

“Are you going to buy that?” she asked.

Felicity’s eyes flicked to her and back to the lady on the box. She turned away and headed for the cashier without answering.

—————————————-

“No.”

“It’s just a precaution—“

“No.”

“You don’t know where most of these low lifes have been—“

“No!”

“You already wear a mask. You think one more would cramp your style?”

“I SAID NO, FELICITY!”

She blinked once, hurt, and his face immediately fell in that way that made HER feel like the terrible person. 

“Okay. You didn’t have to yell.” She used her sad voice. Take that, Mr Puppy Dog Eyes.

Oliver’s weight shifted, but he made no move to put any distance between them. She both loved and hated these moments, when his eyes looked like he’d rather eat glass than apologize but his brain had forgotten to tell his body. It made her want to lay hands on his chest and shove, hard, just to see what he’d do. 

But she was more afraid of what she’d do.

“It’s here now. It’s in the city. You could have it and not even have symptoms. I know you pride yourself on always being healthy, but you could carry it home, to your mother or Thea, and not even realize it.” She’d intentionally left herself and Diggle out of the example part; Oliver didn’t seem to be processing this whole situation yet, and she didn’t want him to decide to break up their merry little band and go it alone over an abundance of caution for his teammates. Because he would totally do that.

“Felicity...” 

There were well over a million words in the English language, but Oliver Queen had managed to condense everything he needed to say into just her name. It wrecked her every time. She dropped her head to stare at the flimsy blue mask with the white elastic band she was holding.

“Well wash your hands after you turn them in at the station, then.”

She didn’t look up to watch him walk away.

——————————————

The contagion counter on Dig’s monitor was causing her severe anxiety. He checked it every opportunity he got, and if the statistic was particularly heinous he’d make an announcement to the room at large. Sometimes Oliver would grunt in response from his work bench, but most of the time he responded to it the way he dealt with all bad news: silently. That left the burden on Felicity to respond with some kind of uplifting anecdote or nugget of positivity. It was exhausting. 

“We’re officially under a stay at home order,” John announced the next night. He turned around and leaned back against the computer desk with his giant arms crossed, like he wanted to see their real-time reaction to the next bit of news. “It goes into effect tomorrow night. No congregating beyond family members in your household.”

Felicity made sure not to disappoint him with her reaction. “What does that mean? Does EVERYONE have to stay at home? Will the stores be closed? Because I don’t have to describe the condition of the inside of my fridge right now.”

John smirked, and something like humor—or it could’ve been pity—flashed across Oliver’s face. “Essential businesses will stay open. That includes groceries, Felicity.”

“But we have to hole up alone? For how long?”

He shrugged enormous shoulders. “Weeks. Could be months, they’re saying.”

Oliver had that look again, the far-off one she imagined he had a lot those years he was stuck on the island. That stoic, long-suffering look of acceptance, with a tiny spark of rage and stubbornness that kept the overwhelming pessimism from being a turn off. If one were otherwise turned on by broody, stabby men.

He offered to give her a lift back to her place on the bike, but she’d decided to bring home her favorite Foundry coffee mug, and her backup tablet, the spare charger cords, and that Harvard sweatshirt she liked to pretend had come from Verdant’s lost and found; the one she’d throw on when she was chilly because it smelled like she imagined a certain someone might if she ever got close enough. She couldn’t hold all that stuff and Oliver’s torso at the same time, more’s the pity, so John dropped her off instead.

He killed the engine at the curb and sat staring at the dashboard; Felicity froze in the middle of juggling all her stuff—why couldn’t she be the kind of girl who always had a reusable tote on hand?—and watched him.

“What does all this mean? For us. For the cause.” The Crusade with a capital C. 

He turned to look at her and shrugged. “He won’t stop. You know that.”

“I know.”

His expression started to veer dangerously toward Is There Something We Should Talk About, so she gathered up her spoils inside the sweatshirt and fumbled for the car door.

“You need me to make a run to the store for you?” he asked as she climbed out of the car, always so heartbreakingly kind. Felicity leaned down and shook her head.

“I’ll go tomorrow morning.” A little movement of her shoulders doubled as a shrug and a way to show off the things in her arms. “I have plenty of masks.”

———————————————

One day of virtual meetings at QC made Felicity wonder why anyone ever went into office buildings at all. She could conduct all the necessary business of the CEO’s EA in a smart looking blouse and pajama bottoms. It was heaven. 

She used the laptop for Zoom meetings, her tablet up with a constant link to Oliver, and her phone for lifesaving NSFW comments to Dig. By lunchtime she even had a Dr Who tv marathon going on mute.

With Isabel-the-stick-insect temporarily out of sight, she could indulge in daytime snacking too, a treat that unfortunately ruined her dinner and then made her break into her sad little stash of single-serve gluten-free frozen pizzas at an ungodly late hour. 

Which she almost dropped directly onto the floor, hot out of the oven, when she saw the bulky shadow in her kitchen window. 

It was far from the first time a large man in tight leather pants had silently asked to gain access to her apartment, but it was always a surprise, nonetheless. She stalked to the window and hiked it up with a grunt before wedging the wooden paint stir stick into place so he could fold in half and climb through. 

“You didn’t come to the Foundry tonight,” he growled without preamble. “Are you feeling sick?”

His hand, gloved as it was, reached out briefly like he wanted to brush her hair back and check her forehead for fever, but Felicity jerked back in surprise and his hand clenched on air instead. 

“Social distancing, Oliver!” she hissed. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“You didn’t mean what? To come to my house when the whole city’s under quarantine? I knew you weren’t a good rule follower, but this...”

“That’s why you didn’t show up?”

She opened her mouth and then closed it, collecting her thoughts before trying again. “Did Dig show?”

“Yes, Felicity. We have a job to do, a responsibility.”

“But..the emergency order...”

Oliver looked like he wanted to sigh very deeply. “What about it?”

“We’re only supposed to be around family.” The words came out very small, which was pathetic and embarrassing; the perfect emotions to pair with the feelings of guilt and remorse she already had because she was about to eat a gluten-free pizza without ever once suffering a symptom of Celiac’s. 

Above her head Oliver huffed a laugh, the one he only used when she said inside-her-head things out loud. 

“Does it taste any different? Gluten-free?” 

Her eyes snapped up to meet his amused expression under the hood. “I’ve never tried it. I would never normally buy a food that other people have to have for dietary reasons, but the frozen pizza aisle had been pretty well plundered by the time I got there, and I didn’t think it was smart to keep looking in other stores, you know, for safety reasons—“

His hand on her shoulder made her stop and take a breath. 

“Are you hungry? I could make another one.”

The Arrow smiled.

——————————————-

She rounded the corner to the living room with one piping hot—and another not so much—pizza to find Oliver sitting on her couch, hood thrown back and mask on the coffee table, talking on the phone. 

“...bring that too...we can always go back and get the other stuff if we need it...no...she’ll say yes.”

And then he signed off without saying goodbye.

“She’ll say yes to what?” Felicity set the two pizzas on the coffee table after awkwardly brushing his mask to the side. “I’m assuming “she” means me, in this instance.”

Oliver had the jacket unzipped and the black dry fit peeking out, which never failed to be A Look. He managed to pull off a sheepish expression.

“Dig’s enroute with the rest of the gear. And groceries.”

“Groceries?” Felicity dropped to her knees on the far side of the table and pounced on her cooling pizza. “How long are you staying?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she looked up from her plate. “Oliver?”

“We’re staying...as long as we have to.”

She blinked once. “Staying. Here?”

He nodded slowly as he lifted his first piece of pizza off the plate.

“As in, quarantining. Here.”

“Think of it as a new base of operations.”

He was working very hard to look casual, damn him. 

“What about social distancing? What about, only family members in the same household, Oliver?”

He shrugged, just a bit, and maybe the lines of his abs got highlighted by the dry fit for just a second, and maybe he’d totally done that on purpose because he knew the effect it could have on someone trying to win their side of an argument. 

She threw back her head and groaned, drawing the sound out until it became a frustrated yell. He may or may not have been smiling ever so faintly when she looked at him again.

“Technically we’ll be in the same household.”

THAT stopped her cold. “You want us...all of us...to live together...like a family...through a pandemic.”

He nodded, a twinkle in his eye now.

“But...you live in a mansion. You could go WEEKS without seeing anyone else...”

“You wouldn’t be there,” he said simply. “Or Diggle.”

Felicity just stared.

“You’d rather ride this out in the Foundry?” One of his stupidly perfect eyebrows raised to follow the question and she knew he’d won. 

“We’ll have to work together, you know, during the day. While pretending to be working remotely. Won’t that be weird?”

He took a huge bite and talked around it. “No weirder than crime fighting with a bow and arrow from a secret lair under a nightclub.” Or something to that effect. His mouth was full. 

Felicity grinned despite herself as the doorbell rang. “As soon as I figure out what you said, I will formulate a crushing reply.”

“I have no doubt.”

Diggle at least had the decency to apologize while he was still standing in the doorway, but she waved him off and opened the door wide.

“Welcome to Self Isolation, roomie.”

John grinned at Oliver over the top of her head and carried in the first load.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It continues! Let’s call this canon-adjacent. I haven’t decided if Barry Allen will be introduced into this world—I’m still pissed at him, for one thing—so just assume Oliver got his mask some other way. 
> 
> Thanks for all the lovely responses to the original story! Enjoy!

Felicity swam up from the dream reluctantly. She was still enough in the moment to stay if she wanted, but she was slowly becoming aware that she was no longer reacting to events but manipulating them. No matter how hard she tried, Mr Faceless Hunk had stopped being in charge of the situation. Now when he went for that spot on her neck no real-life man had found for Quite Some Time, she knew it was her conscious self guiding him there, and that took all the fun out of it. 

She squirmed, still partly asleep, and tried to find another comfy position, hoping that would lull her brain back into being a passenger in this fantasy. But the harder she tried to concentrate on staying asleep, the more her brain came on line, beginning to run through the upcoming day’s activities. Isabel had that Zoom meeting scheduled for 9 o’clock sharp, which meant she’d have to call Oliver by 8:30 to make sure he was up and dressed, or at least wearing a shirt and tie. What he wore below the waist was immaterial...

Wait...

Oliver!

Full consciousness rushed back with a force that made her eyes pop open. She blinked twice at the dawn light bleeding around the curtains before she realized she wasn’t in her bedroom. Those were the living room curtains. Even curiouser, the couch pillow was not soft like it used to be, and it was shifting under her cheek in a rhythmic way. Sort of an in...out...breathing kind of way. Like maybe...her pillow...was a person.

Felicity eased her weight back incrementally, activating her core the way Dig was always harping on. He’d be really proud to see her right now. Or probably not, if the identity of her pillow turned out to be who she feared. 

Her brain remembered Dig was living in her apartment too about then, so her slow head turn to reveal her couch buddy became even more dramatic. John...or Oliver...John...or Oliver. Who would it be? One answer would be faintly embarrassing and good fodder for funny stories shared for years to come. The other answer would be instant death from toe-curling humiliation. No biggie.

As she finished sitting up, Felicity allowed her eyes to glance sidelong at her sofa companion. The solid feeling couch cushion that had probably left a weird pattern imprinted on the side of her face was none other than a green leather jacket, which meant answer number two and her certain instantaneous demise. 

That last part may have been out loud, because somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen, John Diggle chuckled.

48 HOURS EARLIER

“I have a blow up mattress. I’ll bring that over tomorrow.”

It was Diggle’s third trip from the car, and Felicity was working very hard to keep her jaw from unhinging as he piled things into her apartment. Oliver had tried to help at first, swallowing down his last piece of frankly-not-shabby pizza in one go and moving to the door, but John’s skeptical eyebrow reminding him he was still wearing the unzipped Arrow suit stopped him cold.  
He regrouped quickly though, she had to give him credit, and busied himself shuttling bags and boxes of groceries to her small kitchen. Felicity drifted in behind him to peek through the spoils.

“Dig, are these...MREs? Where do you even FIND these things?” She picked up a brown packet stamped Property of the United States Government between two fingers like it might come to life and attack. Across the room, Diggle shrugged.

“I am trained to respond to emergencies,” he said simply, like that explanation could cover all the crazy piling up inside her entry. Was that a life raft under the giant package of toilet paper? Felicity shifted her weight closer to the open refrigerator door and the bulk of Oliver Queen appearing and disappearing from behind it as he put away the perishables.

“Is it possible Dig’s a Prepper?” she asked out of the corner of her mouth. His grunt in reply was not an answer, and also not reassuring.

Four hours later, Felicity woke with a gasp. She blinked at the darkness for a moment, covers pulled to her chin, listening for any telltale signs that two large men were also under her roof, but apparently neither of them snored.

She’d forgotten to do a very important thing before she went to bed, a thing she would normally just hop out of bed and do, but that was before her ex-military/ex-Bratva roommates moved in and brought an army’s worth of firepower (and arrows) with. Dig—she knew from a very unfortunate incident involving a nap in the Foundry—was a light sleeper, and Oliver probably slept with his bow under his pillow, at the very least. Getting up to walk around her apartment in the middle of the night was now akin to a suicide mission.

Still, she reasoned to her non-responsive ceiling, they couldn’t get mad if she was in the bathroom, right? She sucked in a fortifying breath and slipped out of bed. 

If either of them woke, they didn’t let her know.

————————————-

There really should’ve been some ground rules set before bed. Or a schedule, maybe. Because three adults attempting to get ready for a day of WFH was quickly becoming WTF. John shook his head and took another sip of coffee as he watched Felicity fly past the back of the couch. As luck would have it, Black Drivers didn’t play much of a role during a pandemic, so he could afford to sit back and relax while the rest of his team scrambled to create a convincing office-like setting for Oliver Queen CEO’s virtual day. 

“Look,” Felicity was saying around a mouthful of toothpaste she was ready to spit into the kitchen sink, “the curtains in the guest room aren’t that different from the ones you were sitting in front of all day yesterday.” She flapped the hand not holding a toothbrush at him. “If Isabel asks, tell her you’re trying out the light in the lesser great room, or whatever.”

“That is not a thing, Felicity.” Oliver was using his patient voice, which was a sure sign he was about to lose his temper. 

Felicity spit decisively and swiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Tonight we can order whatever kind of rich looking backdroppy thing you want and have it delivered by Amazon drone, but I can’t do anything about it right now. Would you get dressed, please? I really need to shower.”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

John, unnoticed, smiled like a super villain. 

Felicity waited for Oliver to disappear into the bathroom before drifting closer to John’s spectator seat and cocking a hip against the couch with a sigh.

“I don’t know what to do when he gets like that.”

John was opening his mouth to reply when Oliver suddenly backpedaled into the hallway.

“Erm,” he said, not looking at them. Or at anything, really. He was concentrating very hard on the floor. 

Felicity shifted her weight onto both feet and uncrossed her arms, alarmed.

“Oliver?”

“Um, ah...” 

“What is it? What’s the matter?” She took one step toward him and then remembered her middle-of-the-night task. “Oh. Oh!”

She hustled across the room and squeezed between Oliver and the open doorway to the bathroom. “Let me just—excuse me—comin’ through.” They were everywhere, hanging over the shower curtain rod, dangling from the towel hooks and the doorknob to the linen closet. “I am so sorry. Last night was bra washing night and I totally forgot to get in here first this morning.”

She emerged, red faced and flustered, with bras crammed in both fists. Lacy ones, sports ones, and a couple with sizable padding. She glanced once at Oliver as she squeezed by him again to get to the merciful sanctuary of her bedroom; his expression was aggressively blank.

Dig might’ve snorted as she slammed the bedroom door shut. She didn’t go back to verify.

—————————————-

Isabel, predictably, noticed Oliver’s change of scenery right off the bat.

“That doesn’t look like your father’s home office.”

Something about the angle of the camera on her laptop made Isabel’s sour face even thinner and more angular, if that was possible. Felicity wrestled her own facial expression into submission and continued shuffling reports into piles while Oliver cleared his throat, a sound she heard both over the computer and faintly through the guest bedroom door. Dig, leaning against the doorframe to her room with his arms crossed, cocked an eyebrow. 

“I’m going to try working from this room today. To see if the, uh, WIFI signal is stronger.”

Felicity, alarmed, glanced at the screen as she sorted papers; Oliver was smoothing an eyebrow with his fingers. She threw a look at Dig, clearly asking how that man managed to lie so convincingly when he was carrying a bow and arrow. 

Isabel pursed her lips and chose to move on. If she wanted a fight, she probably had plenty more ammunition. 

“I’ve scheduled a board meeting for Thursday at 8am. That’s two days from now, Oliver. You might want to write it down.”

“I know when Thursday is, Isabel.”

Isabel smiled in that way that wasn’t a smile at all. Like, not even close. “Maybe so, but you don’t have your assistant at your beck and call these days, and I don’t want you to forget.”

“Hey, good morning. I’m actually right here. I opened the meeting?” Felicity flipped the screen a sarcastic wave while ignoring Oliver’s warning look. John, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, ran a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. 

That turned out to be the highlight of the morning’s work. As usual, Oliver hadn’t read the briefing she’d spent the better part of a day crafting, which meant she had to try to feed him answers over a computer. No more slipping him notes under the conference table, or nudging him with a warning heel. The body language signals he practically absorbed just by sitting next to her were nearly impossible to duplicate with him in the next room. 

Felicity was snapped out of her musings by Isabel’s frown.

“My packet is missing page 34. That should be the Applied Sciences numbers.” Isabel glanced up at the screen. “Could you read them off, Oliver?”

Time froze for a split second as Felicity panicked. He wouldn’t have those numbers, because he never read the damn report. He probably never even printed it off. John, sensing her anxiety, shifted off the door frame toward her. The packet Oliver needed was sitting in front of her, open to the exact page—of course—and begging to be read. 

Inspiration, as so often happened in her life, struck in the most humiliating way possible. Felicity faked a violent and dramatic sneeze, sending the papers in front of her flying off her makeshift desk—which was also her bed, the stupid virus had reduced her to this—and onto the floor in Diggle’s general direction. With one hand she muted herself while the other pointed wildly at the correct sheet of paper.

“Get this to Oliver!” she hissed. John, wide eyed, obeyed. She couldn’t bear to see how the transaction was handled on the other end; she flung herself onto the floor to collect the scattered paperwork, and by the time she was back on the bed Oliver was dutifully running through the numbers. 

Crisis averted.

When he finished, Isabel looked down and clucked her tongue. “I’m missing the next page as well. Oliver, do you mind?”

Felicity rolled her eyes at God. 

—————————————

Oliver was already sprawled out on her sofa by the time she’d finished up her work for the day and closed the door of her bedroom “office” a little harder than was probably necessary. John was puttering around in the kitchen, which was itself producing an amazing smell.

“Are you cooking?” she asked, flopping down next to her boss with a sigh.

“Chili,” Dig called, clearly pleased with himself. He hummed a little as he worked.

Oliver gave her a cursory glance that evolved into a longer, more intent look.

“Did you wear that all day?” he asked suspiciously.

Felicity watched his eyes as he studied her from top to bottom, polka dot blouse to pajama pants, not sure how to take his scrutiny. She waited for him to meet her eye again, then matched him look for look. “It’s Business Casual, Oliver. Professional on top, bedroom on the bottom.” As usual, her mouth was galloping well ahead of her brain. 

He gazed at her, hardly blinking, until the tips of her ears began to grow hot. Normal people didn’t stare into your soul over pj bottoms. This was becoming ridiculous.

Dig saved the day by calling them to supper. The chili was amazing, hearty and filling with just a touch of heat. Oliver wasn’t a big eater, and he never snacked, so watching him scarf two bowls in rapid succession made her happy; Felicity caught herself grinning.

He finally leaned back, top shirt button undone and tie hanging loose. “I’m gonna head to the Foundry and get a workout in before I go out tonight.”

Felicity swallowed her bite. “You’re still going out with all this going on? Isn’t that risky?”

Oliver shot a look to Dig—hoping for back up, no doubt—and shrugged. “No riskier than any other night.”

“Oh sure, a pandemic is sweeping the globe, and if you catch it you could be dead in three days, but you go right ahead, Mr Invincible.”

“I’m out there to catch bad guys, not kiss them, Felicity.”

Her mouth opened and closed. There were no words. Next to her, Diggle cleared his throat.

“Not to completely change the subject, but where exactly does your mother think you are at the moment, Oliver?”

Oliver dropped his gaze to the table, and Felicity knew she wasn’t going to like his answer.

“I may have failed to correct her when she guessed that I’m at Laurel’s.”

Bingo. Definitely an answer they BOTH hated. In a perfect imitation of how she was feeling, John ran a hand up over his face. Oliver pulled his lips in the way he did when he knew he’d messed up.

“In my defense—“

“Oh, here we go.”

He shot Felicity a look for cutting him off. “In my defense, I don’t have a lot of viable alternatives, do I? This is not the moment to break it to my family that I have a secret lair under my nightclub.”

“Okay, fair enough. But in all of Starling City there wasn’t ONE other girl you could tell her you were shacking up with?” The look he gave her had layers to it she was not ready to peel back. “Fine. Discussion over. What time do you want to leave?”

His eyes darted right and left. “For where?”

“The Foundry. You’re not going out without me in you. In you...in your...in your ear. God.”

Again the glance to Diggle. This man.

“It’s safer if you stay here.”

“Unh uh. No way. I have to get out of this apartment for a few hours. Besides, I didn’t spend all that time installing the fastest internet speeds in the Glades into an abandoned steel factory so I could sit at home and hope for the best.”

Diggle was already collecting their bowls and moving for the sink, so Felicity pushed to her feet with a triumphant smirk. Oliver sighed in defeat, but his eyes darted over her again in that way that always made her blush.

“Tell me you’ll at least be matching.”

—————————————

Day two of work-from-home-secretly-with-your-boss went a little better. For one thing, Isabel kept their communication to emails, and there was only one video conference, the majority of which consisted of employee’s pets crashing the scene and doing cute things that distracted everyone and made Oliver frown. It was epic.

John made lunch AND dinner, waving them off when they protested that he was spoiling them.

“Please. I have nothing better to do. And I won’t survive watching Oliver subsist on nothing but vitamin water and protein bars.”

Felicity kept her mouth shut, but she did fist pump when she thought the vigilante wasn’t looking. 

John’s other job—watching the worldwide virus numbers climb—was a lot less fun. It was downright depressing, actually. During a short break in their day, Oliver quietly moved money around and dropped a cool million among various charities. Felicity could’ve kissed him. But she didn’t, for very important social distancing reasons. 

The day had turned overcast, and by the time they headed out that evening for the Foundry fat drops of rain were hitting the sidewalk. Felicity should’ve known then it wasn’t going to be a routine night, but even if she’d had indisputable proof—the kind that would take a time machine to obtain—it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble arguing with him. She settled into her ergonomic rolling chair with a sigh and got to work hunting bad guys. 

It started to go wrong immediately.

First there was the petty thief he happened upon while tracking down a lead on a bigger fish. Felicity normally stayed out of his ear during the routine parts of this business, often mouthing “You have FAILED this city” along with him to make Diggle laugh, but this time she could hear the perp coughing through Oliver’s earpiece.

“Abort, abort, abort!” 

She kind of screeched it, and heard about it AT LENGTH after the stony silence he maintained while dropping Typhoid Andy off at the precinct. Not afraid of his growly voice on a good day, she took her tongue lashing and carried on, undaunted.

“Did you not even notice he was hacking up a lung?! Tell me you were wearing your mask. Your OTHER mask.”

Things only got weirder from there.

It was going on two in the morning, that time of night when she and John both eyed the clock in hopes he was wrapping it up, when Oliver grunted. He had a full range of them, most meant to substitute for words, but this one was definitely injury-related, and it stopped her heart. 

“Oliver? Oliver?!”

The silence before he answered—with another grunt—felt like a lifetime. “I’m here...you better send Dig.”

Felicity stayed in his ear while John went to fetch him, hunkered down at the docks behind a shipping container, he said.

“What happened?” she finally asked, all done with the silence. He didn’t answer right away.

“She came out of nowhere.”

“She? Are you sure?”

He made a noise that sounded like he’d tried to move in a way he shouldn’t. “I suppose that long blonde hair could’ve belonged to a pro wrestler.”

Felicity’s mouth fell open. “Did you just make a joke?”

“It’s been known to happen.” Even though he was clearly in pain, there was a smile in his voice.

“China White?”

“Wha’?”

“I was just thinking, was it China White? Who you fought.”

“I didn’t fight her. I got in her way.”

“That’s...oh. What?”

But by that time Dig had arrived. Her question went unanswered. 

The ribs were definitely cracked, maybe broken, which wasn’t great but also wasn’t fatal. They swung by the Foundry to pick up Felicity and headed back to her place; Oliver only wanted to get out of the van once, he said, which is why they had to sneak him in the front door in the full Arrow get up. Dig lowered him very carefully onto the couch and that’s where he stayed, propped in the corner because laying down was too hard. 

Felicity sat down next to him, only intending to keep him company until he nodded off. How she managed to fall asleep on his shoulder the entire night, she had no idea. 

———————————————-

“Dig, what time is it?”

She whispered it, but Oliver stirred anyway, becoming instantly awake while staying perfectly still in that way that always made her think deserted islands and the military had similar methods for breaking down and then rebuilding a human. She froze and pulled her lips in, not sure if she should apologize to Oliver for what had DEFINITELY been an accident.

Behind them, Dig began pulling things out of the fridge. “It’s almost 7 o’clock.”

Frack. They had an hour to get themselves ready for Isabel and her Board meeting. Those leather pants were a pain to get off even without injury...

“Felicity, I will manage my own pants, thank you.”

Frack.

“It speaks.” John sounded amazingly chipper. Felicity fought the blush creeping up her neck and turned to face the music.

“Sorry for falling asleep on you. I—“

“It’s okay, Felicity.” 

She looked him in the eye for the first time because he was attempting to shift forward, a prelude to standing, and it was obvious he was not looking forward to that part. She popped up off the couch, ready to assist.

“What can I do?”

She hooked a hand through his arm to steady him as Dig appeared on his other side, but Oliver shook his head once and stood without his bodyguard’s help. He swore under his breath as he straightened; her arm was still looped inside his, but neither of them moved to change that. Oliver finally looked over and focused on her. 

“Go over the meeting agenda with me while I’m in the shower?”

She blinked once. “Uh, sure.”

Felicity let her arm drop from his as he began to make his slow way to the bathroom. She didn’t—did NOT—dare look at John. She watched her boss’s retreating back instead.

“Um, just to clarify—“

“Don’t overthink it, Felicity.”

She shut up and followed.


	3. Chapter 3

Felicity closed the front door and blew out a big breath. 

“I haven’t been nervous to go to the mailbox since that lacrosse player stalked me in college,” she said cheerfully. 

Oliver didn’t look up from matching socks while seated in a yoga pose on the floor, but one eyebrow lifted in a way that said he might be asking for that guy’s address later. 

“Somehow I never pictured you being good at laundry, Oliver.” She crossed the room to perch on the arm of the couch and heard John pause in the middle of chopping something in the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you picked that up on Lian Yu.”

“Nope.” He didn’t look up or stop working. “Hong Kong.”

“I’m about ready,” Dig said then, so Oliver nodded and rose to his feet—unless you knew him well you’d never notice how he still favored the ribs, Felicity thought—and headed for the kitchen and the marinated chicken breasts waiting for their date with destiny on the grill. John was already a decent cook when this crazy quarantine experiment of theirs began, but over the past couple of weeks Oliver had taken a shine to grilling. He’d insisted on a charcoal set up, probably an homage to his island days, and had managed to find a small enough grill to fit almost comfortably on her minuscule balcony. From now on—barring a tattletale call to her super about the blatant fire hazard—Felicity could look forward to a flame grilled treat every few days.

She wandered into the kitchen at his back, mouthing “Hong Kong?” with a puzzled frown at Dig when Oliver wasn’t looking. She got a lift of the eyebrows in return. Meanwhile, the grill master was busy throwing a leg over the windowsill and negotiating the journey onto the balcony with a plate of chicken breasts and a bruised body. He only grunted a little bit. 

“Shouldn’t this be a door and not a window?” he grumbled mildly, but Felicity was paying more attention to his backside than his words. When his question finally registered, she bit her lip.

“It’s possible I oversold that as my personal balcony, when in actuality it’s the landing to the fire escape.”

Oliver pondered the raw chicken on the platter and the smoking grill in turn. “Then this is probably illegal,” he decided.

Somewhere near the raw veggies, John snorted.

Oliver shot a look at the back of Dig’s head and then focused on Felicity. “In my defense, I don’t have much experience with fire escapes.” He did the barely shrug thing. “Except to occasionally climb them in order to chase bad guys.”

“And hover outside my window.”

His eyes flicked to her in complete innocence as he laid the chicken on the grill. Felicity crossed her arms.

“Don’t play coy with me, Mr Queen. You did it two nights ago when I didn’t go to the Foundry because I had a headache.” She shifted her weight to better illustrate holding her ground. “And while we’re on the subject, we have to stop sleeping together.”

John coughed once, violently, and left the room; it was hard to tell if he was actually choking or just hoping for death to take him.   
Meanwhile, Oliver’s gaze jumped from her to the grill and back comically. Her face blazed red with embarrassment. 

“Falling asleep. Together. I meant falling asleep together. On the couch.” She ground her molars. “English is my first language, I swear.”

It was becoming a thing, them collapsing onto the couch after a long night chasing baddies, Oliver with his feet up on the coffee table while she flipped through the antenna channels—Battlestar Galactica had just started over on one of them, and she was hoping it would catch his interest—but before the second commercial break his chin would drop to his chest. Felicity never could resist a softly snoring human; it was impossibly charming. Before she knew it, she was waking up on his shoulder with panda eyes and wondering why her neck was stiff. It had to stop.

A phone went off in the living room and saved her from the babbling elaboration she feared was coming; Felicity didn’t miss the look of relief on Oliver’s face as she turned to see if John was going to get the call. He strode back into the kitchen with Oliver’s phone in hand.

“Thea,” he mouthed, handing it out to Oliver before returning to his vegetables. Felicity didn’t want to hover, but curiosity kept her close to the open window anyway.

The conversation appeared to be mostly one-sided, though with Oliver Queen’s penchant for monosyllabic answers it was hard to tell. After a couple of minutes he got the Murder Frown and pulled the window down one handed from the outside, a feat if you were anybody but him. Felicity drifted to Diggle’s side and leaned sideways against the counter, not looking but not NOT looking, either. Dig offered her a slice of red pepper; she wrinkled her nose but munched it down fast enough when he scowled.

Felicity could almost hear the sound his phone made when he punched the button to end the call; Oliver’s gaze lifted to her, like he was seeking her out. She pushed  
off the counter and took the couple of steps needed to bring her to the window; the smell of grilling chicken greeted her as he lifted the sash.

“Thea’s boyfriend. Roy.”

Felicity nodded and rolled her eyes at his explanation; they all knew Thea’s boyfriend.

“He got himself into some trouble with the police.”

She didn’t think she needed to point out that they were all well acquainted with Roy’s ways and as such were not the least bit surprised by this. “So?”

“So Thea wants me to talk to him. Mentor him. Help him see the error of his ways.”

Felicity’s brows scrunched together. “If I didn’t know better I’d think she  
wanted the OTHER guy to talk to him.”

Oliver’s look said he was considering it.

“Will you have to go to the mansion?”

He frowned slightly and shook his head no, and that’s when Felicity began to get that feeling. The one that said Oliver Queen was about to make a decision for her. She HATED that feeling. The last time she got it he made her a secretary.

“I want to bring him here.”

“No.”

“It’s only for a few days—“

“We’re in the middle of a PANDEMIC, OLIVER.”

“SO WE’LL TAKE HIS TEMPERATURE.”

Felicity flung both hands out to question life itself while the object of her rage took to focusing slightly above her head and to the right. “I don’t run a boarding house, Oliver! I don’t have an extra spare bedroom lying around.” She watched his Adam’s Apple bob when he swallowed.

“I know that, Felicity.” His voice had gone soft and sort of husky, the deadliest of combinations for her under the circumstances. He shifted his weight and waited to take whatever else she wanted to throw at him. Except he already knew she wouldn’t throw anything else, dammit.

“Your chicken’s about to burn,” she said, which was the world’s dumbest concession speech, and also the truth.

—————————————

Felicity rescinded the concession before the chicken was half eaten with a shake of her head. “If Roy lives here—“

Oliver cut into her question with a sigh and a beleaguered look at John. She tipped her head in aggravation and continued.

“If Roy lives HERE, how are we supposed to spend our nights together? Ugh. You know what I mean. He’s going to get suspicious when the three of us traipse off to the Foundry every night.”

Oliver considered while he chewed. “Who was the guy on tv they used to drug to get on a plane?”

John raised an eyebrow. “You mean BA Baracus? From the A Team?”

“That’s it. Him.” He popped another forkful of chicken in his mouth.

“You want...to drug Roy? Every night?” Felicity grabbed for the edge of the table to help support her sudden bout of incredulity while Oliver shrugged nonchalantly. She passed the ball.

“Dig?”

John sighed. “I don’t think we can do that, Oliver.”

They waited while Oliver chewed and swallowed. “We could put him up at Verdant.” 

“Better,” Felicity decided. “Still not good, but better.”

—————————————

Diggle conjured up an army cot from wherever it was he seemed to find everything, and Oliver moved the mini fridge from behind the bar into the office. 

“This is good. We could use security anyway.” Oliver wiped his hands together and gave the room a sweep of his gaze. “Maybe I should pay him.”

Felicity stopped swinging her feet against Thea’s desk and hopped down. “We should be gone before he gets here. Don’t forget your mask. Your other mask.” Oliver rolled his eyes. “We’ll see you downstairs.”

He nodded acknowledgment, but otherwise said nothing. 

Felicity had to double time it down the stairs to keep up with John’s stride. “How do you think that will go?” she asked, mindful of the echoing tap of her flats in the deserted club. 

“Oh, Roy’s gonna end up with an arrow in him,” he assured her. He entered the code to the Foundry door and let her go first. 

She didn’t have to ask his opinion on pulling up the security cams of the club. Roy showed up not five minutes later and climbed the stairs to the office/stockroom. “Shoulda brought popcorn,” she mused. Dig hummed in agreement as he settled down next to her in front of the monitor. 

There was no sound to go with the video, but nobody looked like they were in danger of dying either, so by the time Oliver slipped in through the super secret entrance Felicity had moved on to other technological pursuits and John was warming up for a workout. 

“How’d it go?” she asked without turning away from her keyboard. She felt Oliver’s gaze on the back of her head.

“I probably didn’t take advice at that age either,” he decided with a resigned sigh.

“You don’t take advice now,” she muttered to herself, but Diggle heard and chuckled.

When Oliver didn’t say more, Felicity spun around to find him staring at the case holding his suit.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, though she already knew.

Oliver must’ve known that too, because he didn’t bother answering. 

—————————————-

They were driving home at the end of the night through the quiet Starling City streets before Oliver spoke.

“He’s seen her.”

“Who?”

“Roy.”

“No. Who her.”

“The blonde woman.” Felicity’s eyes flicked up to watch Oliver in the rear view mirror and saw him twist his trunk slightly, maybe remembering the fall that caused the rib injury. He hadn’t run across her again, but they’d picked up a string of police reports about a masked blonde beating the hell out of male perps. More power to her, Felicity thought with grim approval. 

“Did the Arrow warn him to steer clear?” 

So far Roy hadn’t risen higher in the crime world than B&Es and joy rides, but anybody could mistake him for more in the hot pursuit of justice.

“I gave him a way to contact me.”

Felicity’s mouth thinned to an unhappy line. 

“What?” Oliver couldn’t possibly have seen her expression, but somehow he knew. 

She shook her head once, hard enough to flip her ponytail across her shoulders. “You’re going to train him to be your mini me?”

“He has some skills.”

Felicity snorted as her fingers began to dance over the tablet in her lap. At the next red light she flipped it up to show Dig and Oliver the real-time security camera footage from the club office. It looked like Roy was using the small red communication arrows like darts and flinging them against the office wall. While they watched he missed wildly, the baby arrow glancing off the metal doorframe and bouncing back at him; Roy ducked, fell over the corner of the desk, and disappeared from sight.

“Those skills? Are those the ones you mean?”

Diggle looked away to hide a smile as Oliver hissed through his teeth. He sat back, disappearing into the shadows of the back seat. Felicity swallowed a chortle and let him brood for the rest of the drive home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break between chapters. Enjoy!

“We’re coming closer to flattening the curve,” Diggle announced over breakfast a few days later. It was the most optimistic he’d sounded in several weeks, though from the glimpse Felicity had gotten at the numbers it still didn’t seem all that rosy. 

She rolled her head to both shoulders slowly, then grimaced as she dropped it back, tipping her face to the ceiling. Despite sleeping in her own bed several nights in a row—Oliver had taken to skipping the couch and going straight to bed at the end of their nights—she was still a mess of aches and pains. 

“You alright?” Dig inquired around a mouthful of toaster pastry.

“Mmm. Must’ve slept wrong.”

He closed his laptop containing the virus numbers and pushed back from the table. “This pandemic is ruining my diet. Who’s bright idea was it to buy Pop Tarts, anyway?”

Oliver, leaning back against the kitchen counter, glanced up from his coffee mug, while Felicity frowned and pulled the box of breakfast treats closer.

“It was my turn to shop,” she huffed. 

Oliver looked away again, but not in time to hide his smile. 

Felicity polished off the last of her breakfast while using her free hand to massage a kink out of her opposite shoulder. Oliver watched from under his lashes.

“You sure it’s from sleeping funny?”

Felicity made an unhappy sound. “I don’t know. Could be anything. Maybe it’s early onset of the plague.”

“It’s not the plague,” he assured her with weary certainty. 

———————————

They were an hour and nine minutes into their morning Zoom with Isabel when Oliver began staring at her. Felicity could practically feel it through the computer screen, his Hunter look, his tell that he was figuring something out, and when he did that Something had better be concerned. She shot him a questioning look as best she could with Nosy Rosy watching their every move, but as soon as he caught the look he focused back on his paperwork. After another minute he cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, Isabel. I need a second.”

Felicity watched him get up from his seat and exit the screen. Her eyes darted to the co-CEO, who was in turn shooting her a look of surprise and annoyance. Almost immediately there was a soft knock on her bedroom door before it swung open wide enough to reveal Oliver’s head and shoulders.

“You alright?” he asked, sotto voce.

Felicity clicked the mute button with a panicked glance at her screen. “Oliver!” she hissed through her teeth.

“You’re holding yourself funny,” he pushed on. “Is it your neck still?”

With another quick glance at the opposition in Chanel she leaned away from the screen of her laptop and bared her teeth. “It’s going to BE my neck if the ice princess figures out we’re Quaranteaming!” 

Oliver stared at her, unblinking, for exactly six seconds—she was counting, and starting to sweat—and then straightened and pulled the door shut without a sound. Half a minute later he was back in his seat. Felicity blew out a breath and unmuted herself.

——————————

If the Roy-as-Resident-of-Verdant plan had one major flaw, it was how the three of them would sneak into the basement nightly without running into the club’s new live-in security. Oliver Queen, Master of Stealth (Felicity grinned every time she thought about how much he hated it when she called him that) had taken to slipping into their secret base first and suiting up so he could get Roy out of the building under the guise of training while the other two got in undetected. 

Unfortunately, that left the Arrow with no backup—thus vulnerable—for longer than she and Diggle liked. Felicity bit her bottom lip and practically danced in place as she watched John enter the code to the basement. He frowned.

“I thought you went before we left.”

She threw him a glare. “It’s not THAT.” The door clicked open and she darted ahead of him to be the first inside. “I don’t like it when he’s out there alone.”

“Roy’s there,” Diggle drawled, his voice heavy with sarcasm. 

“Ha ha. You know what I mean.” She rattled down the stairs just shy of a run and crossed the space to her computers in record time. 

“C’mon babies,” she whispered as she woke them up and began scanning. “There.” 

He was on the pebbly roof of the bank building, a flat expanse he used a lot because of its good views in every direction and easy access to both downtown and the Glades. Roy was with him, arms stiff at his sides and hands fisted, probably getting a lecture. Felicity let out the breath she’d been holding and shook the tension from her shoulders in a little shimmy.

“Got him?” John’s hip came to rest on the desk next to her.

“Yep. All good.”

“Told ya.” He shifted back up and strolled toward the training mats, a study in nonchalance though she suspected he’d been concerned too. A small smile tugged at her lips as she got to work looking for Starling City residents to help.

Within ten minutes she had a hit, a 911 call for an assault in progress, and not far from Oliver’s position. She broke in to his pep talk and gave him the low down. He sucked in a breath, just a second to think through his options, before acknowledging in a gritty whisper that he was going. From the vantage point of her security camera, Felicity watched them both leave the roof. 

“Well, this should be fun,” she muttered to the air, and then louder to the room at large, “Dig, they’re on the move!”

He hustled over, a sheen of sweat just starting from his workout, and stood behind her to watch their progress. All  
the way down the side of the building Roy seemed to be talking, but without a mic they couldn’t tell what, exactly, he was saying; Felicity made a mental note to work up some tech Oliver could slip on him so she and Dig could hear both sides of the conversation. As it was, all they got was a lot of low-key growling from the Arrow.

“He hates chatter when he’s working,” Felicity chortled to no one in particular. Her fingers danced over her keyboard as she followed them through the cityscape, bouncing from one security cam to the next to track their progress.

“One more block,” she prompted, a weather eye out for the crime in progress; a blur of long blonde hair flashed past one of her camera feeds and made her gasp. “Was that—?”

Through the computer’s speaker she heard Oliver grunt, and knew he wanted her attention but couldn’t say her name without outing her to Roy. They stopped just shy of the scene and tucked themselves around the corner of the adjacent building.

“I saw it,” she acknowledged. “Is it that blonde woman?”

“Yes.” The syllable came out of him short and tight.

Despite the No Chatter Rule, Felicity pushed on. “Are you going to engage?”

She heard his breath hiss through his teeth. 

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you.”

Roy seemed to get more animated next to him; the camera caught him bouncing up behind Oliver’s shoulder, seemingly ready to jump into the fray.

“Oh, Roy. I wouldn’t, honey,” Felicity whispered; behind her Diggle snorted agreement. She pulled up multiple feeds so they could see what Oliver & Co. were seeing. The woman was a blur of long hair and bo staff, twirling through the pair of perps like a tornado. 

“Please tell me her nickname is the Tasmanian Devil.” Felicity had meant to keep that one to herself, but her mouth had other ideas. No one reacted.

Meanwhile, Roy had continued his bouncing, dancing on his toes like a fighter spoiling for a challenge. Oliver swung an arm out and plastered him back against the building with a little more force than necessary. 

“Hey!” Roy protested, loud enough for the Foundry team to hear. “C’mon man! You gonna let her get your glory?”

Quick as a snake, Oliver spun left and pinned Roy’s chest to the wall again with his forearm. Roy let out a squawk of surprise.

“Uh oh.” Felicity’s eyes went wide. Would Detective Lance come to the rescue if she called? Of course, he was no fan of Roy’s either. Her fingers strayed to her phone anyway, just in case.

“We. Will not. Engage.” The gritty Arrow whisper made Felicity shiver. Behind her, John shifted his weight. Her eyes flicked to the other cam and she sat forward.

“Arrow, she’s got ‘em on the run.”

He gave Roy one more push, the period at the end of his sentence, and stepped around the corner of the building to check for himself. The perps had split in different directions, and the woman was clearly trying to decide who to follow.

“Help the vic,” Oliver growled to Roy before breaking into a run for the closest bad guy. 

“Here we go,” Felicity murmured, scouting ahead of Oliver to see if she could gain him an advantage. 

Three minutes later it was over. 

“SITREP,” he ordered, while the guy he’d caught stood bound head to toe against a light pole. 

Felicity checked her screens one by one. “Roy is sitting with the vic. 911 has been called. Miss Vigilante...” she strung the name out for effect, “has her guy down too. She wasn’t as gentle as you.” Her nose wrinkled with barely contained joy. Oliver only grunted in reply.

Felicity propped her chin in her hand, enjoying the mental picture that popped into her head. “You gonna go say hello? Introduce yourself?” 

He ignored the teasing. “I’m bringing Roy back after I turn this asshat in. Make sure you stay out of sight.”

“Copy that. Tell me you have your mask.”

He ignored that too.

———————————

They were getting better at it, the complete silence they had to maintain whenever Felicity’s mom called. After the first time—when Oliver accidentally dropped a pot lid onto the stove while they were talking and Felicity had to spend the next twenty minutes explaining why there were COOKING sounds coming from her end of the line—the boys learned that no good could come from making Mama Smoak suspicious.

It was Saturday; they were flopped on the couch watching a football game on mute, Oliver and Dig, though it had to be some previously-aired game, because there weren’t any live sports happening at the moment, right? Except motorsports, she’d heard, which the drivers were playing like video games. So maybe this was video game football? Like she’d be able to tell the difference. It was all very confusing. Felicity shook her head and tried to concentrate on whatever her mother was saying.

“...and the casinos had to close, so I thought, ya know, why not?”

“Uh, sure.” Felicity, cross-legged on the bed, arched her back to try to relieve the permanent ache.

“So it’s okay?!” Donna’s pitch jumped an octave and Felicity winced.

“Is what okay?”

“For me to drive up to Starling and stay a few weeks with my baby!” 

Felicity’s brain fritzed momentarily.

“Um...what?” 

Her mother had already rushed headlong into the list of things they would do as soon as she got there. 

“Mom. MOM! Stop! It’s a seventeen hour drive!”

Oliver’s head appeared around the edge of her doorframe, clearly drawn by the panicked edge in her voice; he was wearing a concerned frown. Felicity frantically shooed him away, but just as quickly changed it into a gesture motioning him forward, so in the end it was just a crazed flapping of her hand and a bewildered looking Fortune 500 CEO. Donna’s voice had turned whiny in the meantime, that petulant tone she got when she sensed she wasn’t going to get her way. Felicity was still gesticulating wildly as she took a deep breath and cut in on her mother, while simultaneously relaying utter panic through her eyes to Oliver.

“Mom, I don’t think it would be smart for you to come visit right now—“ Oliver’s eyes bugged wide as he mouthed the word “mom”. “It's not a good time to fly, and you can’t drive all that way by yourself. It wouldn’t be safe.”

Oliver had leaned so far over the threshold into the room he finally had to take a step forward or risk falling on his face. Felicity continued applying logic to her argument, not that logic had ever figured prominently in Donna Smoak’s decision making process, but she’d often found she could bewilder her mother into changing her mind with the right combination of big words and soothing tone of voice. It was somehow both worse and better that Oliver was still in the room, listening to every word and rubbing his fingers together, probably without even realizing it. 

She hoped that didn’t mean he was considering arrowing her mother. Although...

“Alright, alright, you’ve made your point. I won’t come.” Donna followed it with a Daytime Emmy-award winning sigh. Felicity’s eyes rolled back in relief, and in her peripheral Oliver took her meaning and sagged forward himself. 

“Excellent!”

“What?” Her mother’s tone darkened.

Felicity realized her mistake and rushed to cover. “Uh, an excellent choice to think of your health and stay home, obviously.” She chuckled nervously. “At your age—“

Frack. Too far, too far! Oliver’s face was giving her the same admonishment, and in her ear Donna Smoak began winding up for round two. Felicity’s face scrunched into a grimace at the choice she had to make. 

“Hey mom? Love you, gotta go.”

She hung up with the words “I had you at a very young age” reverberating in her ear. 

“Okay, that did not just happen.” Felicity tossed the phone onto her bed like it was radioactive. She collapsed forward onto her bedspread; maybe smothering herself to death was the best option. 

“Do you think...will she...” Oliver seemed to be having trouble with English. 

“I don’t think so.” She lifted her head so the next sentence wasn’t muffled beyond comprehension. “Not after I hurt her feelings. Ow.” The position she was in was doing nothing good for her neck, or her back. 

“Hey.” And then he was right there, his weight shifting the mattress enough to jostle her. Before she could scramble back up to a sitting position his big hands were on her shoulders, kneading the muscles with just a little less force than she typically liked. Felicity tensed for a second—because oof, big Oliver hands on her shoulders—but then something weird—weirder—happened: after a few seconds of squeezing and rolling the muscles of her shoulders under his fingers, Oliver found his confidence. A hum of pleasure left her lips involuntarily, encouraging him to work harder as his thumbs pressed in on the exact spot it hurt and twisted away again. The results were amazing. Felicity’s brain got that happy, buzzy feeling as the tension flooded out of her upper body. 

“Oh. Ohhhh,” she moaned, melting further into the comforter, forgetting completely where she was and who she was with. For a second his hands strayed lower, his fingers working either side of her spine and making her torso sway in concert. She’d swear her soul left her body for a moment.

“Yessss...ah, that’s...Oliverrrrr...”

And then the magical hands froze before disappearing altogether; his weight left the bed like the mattress had recently been lit with a match. As her soul crashed back into place Felicity’s eyes popped open in horror. 

Oliver cleared his throat loudly. “So, uh, I should, um, I gotta...go—“

“Uh huh okay yeah.” Felicity didn’t dare look him in the eye. His legs moved past her sight line in something just shy of a sprint. When she was sure he was gone she scrambled up off the bed, unable to even appreciate the fact that her neck and shoulders felt spectacular. Instead, the places where he’d touched her burned with the heat of a thousand suns. Or maybe not that bad, she corrected herself, but BAD. 

Felicity straightened the bed covers, emptied her clean laundry basket, and saw to a hundred other little things that needed immediate attention before she could make herself pass through the doorway of her room. Face burning in embarrassment, she crept down the hall, expecting to run into Oliver at any moment and have to look him in the eye, but Diggle was the only occupant of the communal spaces of her apartment.

“Hey.” She went for breezy, though it came out a little more like mildly hysterical. “Where’s Oliver?”

John didn’t look up from his phone. “Foundry. Said he needed a workout.”

Felicity made an interested noise and fled past him on her way to hide out in the kitchen until her blush was under control.

“Hey, Felicity?” She froze at the tone of John’s voice. “Next time just tell me first, so I can take a walk or something.”

Her mouth fell open in shock. “Dig, that’s not—“

“Mmhm.” He continued to study his phone with a knowing air. 

Felicity dropped her head in defeat and went in search of Mint Chip.

————————————

“...so I guess the only good side to spending every minute of my work week on a Zoom meeting with Isabel Rochev is knowing she can’t physically get her claws in me.”

“I didn’t know it was that bad for you.” Felicity leaned back in her chair with a grim smile and swiveled idly back and forth in answer. John shook his head at her from his perch on the corner of her desk. “Does Oliver?”

“Heck no. I’m afraid I won’t be able to control him if he finds out.” She chuckled as her eyes flitted across her monitors, tracking the man in question while their comms were muted. “Besides, his idea of”—she made the finger quotes—“‘taking care’ of the situation would probably mean sleeping with her. Can you imagine? Thank God we’re in a global lockdown.”

That surprised a laugh out of Dig, the first big belly laugh she’d heard from anyone in months. A lightness bubbled up inside her in response; it gave her the feeling things were still okay.

Which is precisely when everything began to go wrong. 

She heard the skid of his boots on gravel first, an indicator that he’d come to an abrupt and surprised halt. Felicity’s laugh faded away as she turned to find him on her screen: the new lady vigilante was squared off to him, less than six feet away.

“Social distancing, Oliver,” she whispered under her breath, as surprised as he looked to see their blonde mystery person. Various scans had been running for her 24/7 since the last time they’d crossed paths, with little success. Thank God Roy was upstairs, quiet and accounted for. 

For a moment the two masked crusaders stood without speaking, assessing the other, or maybe just cut from the same cloth of reticence. Felicity found she was holding her breath, and after a glance at John knew he was too.

Then the woman spoke, so low there was no way to pick it up on Oliver’s mic. But whatever she said made him shift a step closer. Felicity’s hands fisted on the desk top.

“Oliver...” she whispered, both glad and concerned that their channel to him wasn’t open.

With another step they were face to face. The woman said something else; for the first time she and John could hear the pitch of her voice. Oliver’s hand raised slowly to her head, and with one smooth movement he’d removed the fall of blonde hair that suddenly couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a wig. 

“Sara?” 

The name came out of him like he’d been punched in the gut; Felicity practically felt it. John moved in her peripheral, a slow rise to his feet like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing.

“Does he mean...?” Felicity’s question trailed off with no ending and no answer. There appeared to be one final exchange between the two figures before a flash of light and an explosion threw Oliver backwards to the ground. Felicity jumped straight up in her seat and John swore loudly. 

By the time the smoke cleared, Oliver was alone on the rooftop. 

Dig’s long strides were already crossing the Foundry floor, stopping briefly at the storage cart where they stashed the ammo. “I’m heading to intercept, Felicity. Talk me in.” She nodded and sat forward to type; no need to check if he had his earpiece in. Back on the screen, she watched the Arrow climb to his feet as if he was 80 years old, his body language speaking of shock and defeat and an overburden of secrets. 

“Hurry, Dig!” she hollered to the metal clang of John’s feet taking the stairs at a run. Then she opened the channel to Oliver.

“Are you alright? Oliver?”

He was standing wide-legged for balance, arms loose at his sides, no situational awareness at all. With his back to the cam she couldn’t see his expression, and the not knowing made her skin crawl. 

She tried reaching him again. “John’s on his way to meet up with you.”

He turned a slow circle, maybe looking for the woman, or just trying to get his bearings. 

“Oliver? Please just come home.” Felicity immediately pulled her lips in tight, mortified at the slip up, but this at least he acknowledged.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Okay.” 

———————————-

Sara Lance was alive, to begin with.

The first sentence of A Christmas Carol morphed itself to meet the needs of the current situation and floated through Felicity’s brain as the three of them entered her darkened apartment for the night. Oliver led the way, fitting the key into the lock with such quiet efficiency he might not have used one at all, except none of them were wired to ever leave a door unlocked.

There would be no television tonight, no bottles of beer pulled from the fridge to be shared around her kitchen table, no late night conversations about QC work that would happen the next morning. Felicity made it as far as the back of the couch before coming to a halt, all the twists and turns of this very long couple of days catching up with her at last. She leaned a hip against it and reached back to massage her neck and shoulders as best she could. 

In front of her, Oliver stopped in the doorway to her bedroom, a curious sight since he normally never set foot anywhere near it without her permission. John was behind him and paused, because Oliver was big enough to block the door to both bedrooms, and it was clear John didn’t want to push him out of the way. There was a quiet exchange of words between them, so low she could only hear the deep thrum of their voices; Felicity’s head tipped to the side in curiosity.

With increasing fascination, she watched them disappear into her room for maybe half a minute, then Oliver led the way back out and into the guest bedroom they’d been sharing. Her mouth opened and closed over a question.

Oliver’s shoulders reappeared first, emerging backwards from the guest room, clearly on one end of a piece of furniture. He shuffled sideways and then turned the corner carefully into her bedroom again, about the time John appeared on the other end. It was her small computer desk they were maneuvering across the threshold, the one Oliver’d been using since he moved in. They worked quietly, guiding each other’s movements with few words and low voices stretched thin by fatigue. Felicity shifted her weight off the couch back, beyond curious but also reluctant to get in the way.

In another minute they were back; John stepped into the guest room and returned with the small desk chair she’d picked up at a consignment store, rolling it into her bedroom while Oliver stood next to the bathroom doorway like he was summoning the strength to go in and get ready for bed.

Her vocal chords finally unfroze. “Oliver?”

He glanced up at her from under his lashes, head still bent to his hands. “Your neck’s been hurting because you’ve been using your bed as a work space. I noticed yesterday while we were Zooming with Isabel, there just—“ he stopped and swallowed—“there wasn’t a way I could fix it with her watching.”

Felicity’s mouth fell open. Oliver reached inside the bathroom to flip on the light; Dig reappeared and crossed into the other bedroom without comment. “I’ve ordered a second desk and office chair. I’ll make do until it gets delivered.”

He stepped into the bathroom without waiting for a thank you, or a goodnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene in the Foundry right after Oliver discovers Sara is alive is one of my favorites. All the OTA interactions in those early seasons were so organic and effortless, I decided not to try to recreate one here; your memories will do it better justice.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thought I’d give you a taste of Oliver’s perspective in some of this chapter...

Maybe it was bound to happen, given their proximity so many hours of the day, the inevitable slip up—it did take both Dig and Felicity to haul him down the stairs after the dosing of Vertigo he got breaking up that drug ring—but all the logic in the world couldn’t make Oliver less pissed that Roy Harper was standing over him when he woke up in the basement of Verdant.

“What the—“

Felicity jumped into his line of sight, a small blonde bulwark in front of his sister’s boyfriend. “Oliver, listen—“

“What is he DOING here, Felicity?!”

“HE GOT IN, OKAY?!” And then a little more under control, “The door didn’t quite close all the way when we had to drag you down the stairs swinging at hallucinations from your latest drug overdose, you big jerk!”

She stopped, panting, maybe just realizing she’d used her loud voice on her daytime boss. Oliver studied her—nauseous as he was, the drug and the antidote still battling it out in his system—the flush of her cheeks, her blue eyes wide with anger. He really wanted to grab her and...what? Shake her for being careless? Thank her for making the decision he couldn’t about bringing Roy in on his secret?

Kiss her?

He levered himself up off the exam table with a groan instead of settling on an answer, because lately the last one was his default impulse, and it scared the hell out of him.

John, silent and out of the way until now, stepped forward on the opposite side of the table to put a hand on his wrist; not a restraint, just a check of his pulse. With Oliver’s nerve endings on fire from the residual Vertigo, even that light touch made him hiss in pain and annoyance.

The corner of Dig’s mouth crimped. “Easy, man. I’m not out to get you.” He lifted his hand away, apparently satisfied with what he’d found. “None of us are.”

Felicity had stepped back to stand shoulder to shoulder with Roy, no doubt ready to throw herself in front of him again if necessary. It made a curious ache rise up in the middle of Oliver’s rage, a longing for her to be that protective of him, too. He shook his head to throw off the feeling.

“I decide, Felicity,” he said, in a voice gone shakier than he’d like.

“It’s not always up to you,” she muttered, soft but stern. Logical. Sometimes he hated logic. 

He blew out a breath to help settle his stomach and changed the subject. “Has anyone seen Sara?”

Felicity huffed, maybe annoyed about the change of subject, or maybe—like him—relieved. “I think I’ve figured out where she’s holed up.” Even without him watching, the sound of her heels tapping across the Foundry floor told Oliver everything he needed to know about her mood. He shifted his gaze from his lap to the floor and experimented with standing; Dig shifted a step closer to catch him if necessary. 

The screen hurt to look at, but he made himself try to focus anyway. “The clock tower?”

“Yeah.” Felicity turned back to look at him, and he knew her anger was fading already. They had trouble staying mad at each other; they always had. He set that thought aside as too delicate a subject to spend time on at the moment. 

“I need to go check on her.” 

“Oliver, I don’t—“

“Not a good idea—“

John and Felicity protested over each other, but he ignored them both. He flicked a pained glance at Roy, mute and shell shocked in the space he’d been holding since Felicity left him to return to her computers. 

“Hey,” Oliver said, gritty sounding but not mean. Roy looked at him. “Feel like getting some fresh air?”

——————————————

The apartment was unusually quiet that night; tension hung around every move Oliver made, and he still felt like shit. Vertigo had the worst hangovers.

He tried not to shuffle like an old man to the bathroom, but the regular vigilante aches and pains piled on top of the drug overdose made everything hurt exponentially. His eyes were on the floor, but he knew she was standing in the doorway to her bedroom, her hip cocked against the door frame, waiting for him.

“Tomorrow?”

He nodded faintly. “Tomorrow. She’s still a little...nervous. Of people. But she said she’d come to the Foundry.” Oliver raised his head in time to see Felicity nod once. 

“I’m glad she’s not dead,” she decided.

The corner of his mouth lifted in surprise. “Yeah. Me too.”

“You okay?”

He studied her for a moment, just a few seconds to center himself as he took in the flawless symmetry of her face, the unbelievable perfection in her bone structure; he never got tired of staring. He wondered if she’d noticed. “Lying won’t help, will it.”

Her mouth, at this late hour devoid of her signature lipstick, quirked up into a tired smile.

“Nope.”

Oliver felt his mouth lift at the corners again, his regular smile nowadays. “I’m not great. But I’ll be okay.”

Her hand reached up and brushed his bicep in a touch so familiar, yet so new, it made him shiver. He pushed on into the bathroom to make space between them, because cohabitating with Felicity Smoak was more wonderful—and more dangerous—than he’d ever thought possible. 

———————————————

He’d convinced them to let him bring her to the Foundry by himself, a chance to let her acclimate without strangers around, he’d said. But really it was for Oliver himself: pulling that wig off Sara’s head had let in a flood of memories of his days immediately before and after the Amazo; becoming a prisoner of Ivo, becoming Shado’s lover; rediscovering Sara just in time to lose Slade. His ever-present nightmares had a focus again, a theme. He woke himself when he could—Dig did it when he couldn’t—always worried he’d alert Felicity in the next room and reveal a secret she might already know anyway. 

It surely couldn’t be a surprise that the Arrow didn’t sleep like a baby.

Sara seemed smaller now, somehow, this party girl he’d known to be larger than life, always fuller and brighter and deeper than Laurel’s sweet but delicate nature. Where was the daredevil, the instigator, the tomboy-turned-temptress who maybe should’ve been his all along, in place of her sister. Oliver watched her explore their basement hideout like she was trying very hard not to leave any evidence of her presence, and wondered if the Sara of before might’ve been a good match for the Tommy-that-was, instead of him. But she’d wanted Oliver, even though she’d made it clear boys weren’t her only interest. Even though Laurel had already called dibs. 

But that was before; he knew where the ache for those days lived in his chest, but he could no longer feel it. And even if he could, this wasn’t that girl. He leaned against Felicity’s computer desk and crossed his feet at the ankles, watching Sara move, analyzing her hesitancy, her reluctance to engage. Wondering where the other girl had gone. 

“What do you think?” he asked, choosing to break the silence though it was not his nature.

She flicked a glance to him, her mouth turned down at the corners like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to answer. “It’s...nice.”

Oliver felt the skin around his eyes contract in a slight wince. 

The click of the upstairs door releasing was faint, but he’d been listening for it; he knew they wouldn’t leave him unattended with their visitor for long. He decided to go for self-deprecation, and shrugged.

“We did the best we could with what we had to work with.”

Sara frowned, confused. “We?” Their feet rang on the metal steps as they descended. “You’re not doing this alone?”

Oliver glanced to his left for his partners. “Sara, this is John Diggle and Felicity Smoak.” They stepped out under the fluorescent lights and waited for her to approach them, much like they would try to make friends with a skittish animal. He glanced past John’s shoulder. “No Roy?”

“Not this time,” John said quietly, and as Oliver exchanged meaningful looks with him, Felicity stepped forward to say something to Sara. His gaze rested on both women in turn, letting their body language tell him what their softly spoken words couldn’t. Sara’s arms criss crossed her middle; not a warning to stay back, but protection for herself nonetheless. Felicity, so approachable and open, stood square to her, inviting the new girl closer but content to let her decide. He’d always loved that about Felicity, her willingness to leave herself vulnerable in order to make others comfortable. For a second Oliver let himself wonder if she knew how much he admired her people skills. 

“Sorry?” He’d missed what John was saying to him during his contemplation.

Dig smirked knowingly. “Nothing. Nevermind.”

Sara left soon after, still skittish and a little closed off, though she did give them all a tentative smile, and one final glance at Oliver, before she disappeared up the stairs like a ghost. 

“She’s...quiet.” Dig made the observation like he was reading Oliver’s mind.

“I like her,” Felicity said decisively, making Oliver look her way. She emphasized her declaration with a glance at both of them and a tiny nod that still managed to make her ponytail dance. Then she turned away to get down to business, ready to see what another night of crime fighting would bring. 

Oliver allowed himself an extra breath to stare at the curve of her shoulder before moving away to get dressed. 

——————————————-

She’d meant it as a nice gesture, a reward for his long days as CEO followed by his long nights as a vigilante—he’d never admit it, but she knew he suffered from headaches for a good week after every dose of Vertigo. With the pandemic and the return of his ex-lover thrown into the mix, Oliver was a man sorely in need of a night off and a good home cooked meal.

Felicity just wished so much of it wasn’t currently burning to a crisp on the grill.

She’d not realized until this moment how flammable chicken really was, but the evidence was staring her in the face, producing an alarming amount of flame and smoke, not to mention a peculiar smell. She flicked a glance at her kitchen through the open window, checking for signs that maybe someone had noticed her predicament—and by “someone” she definitely meant John and not Oliver—but Dig’s back was to her as he mixed up a salad, and Oliver was—hopefully—sacked out on the couch. 

Another face appeared in her sight line, and Felicity was reminded of the awkwardness an hour before when Oliver appeared at the front door with Roy Harper in tow; at least one of them had looked sorry about it. Roy had a hunted look about him even now, still recovering from her Loud Voice and keeping a generous social distance; his expression of surprise as he registered her conflagrating chicken would’ve made her laugh except pieces of it were actually ON FIRE now and this was definitely not the time for her brain to remember she’d never bought a fire extinguisher—

“Um,” she said as she stared, a little short on articulation. 

And then Oliver’s big body was there, squeezing out the window and crowding her back against the railing of the fire escape so fast she floundered for a hand hold; except his arm was there too, reaching behind to wrap around her back and secure her body against his protectively while he scooped up the grill cover and slammed it over the small-to-medium-sized potential apartment fire. 

Everything was quiet for three breaths.

Felicity peeked around his bicep to get a look at the remains of her attempt to become a grill master and met his profile instead, his eyes hooded except for the briefest flash of anger. She bit her lip and waited for her comeuppance.

“Everybody all right?” Dig’s giant hands were braced against the windowsill, his voice muffled faintly by the glass of the upper pane. He ducked his head a little to catch Felicity’s eye for confirmation.

“I’m fine. Sorry. Sorry everybody.”

Dig nodded once and then glanced at the crime scene. “I’ll order pizza.”

He disappeared from the window, which just left the smoking charcoal grill and herself still pressed against Oliver’s back.

“I’m really sorry—“

“Are you hurt?”

Not “You’ve ruined dinner”, or “You almost burned down the building”. She wanted to speak again, to thank him, or reassure him, or even continue apologizing, but hearing the catch in his voice on the word “hurt” had frozen her tongue in place. 

“Felicity?” He was managing to both look at her and not look at her at all. 

She shook her head quickly; she was so close to him her nose brushed the back of his shirt. “No. No, I’m fine.” 

Oliver shifted away from her and dropped his arm, though his fingers seemed to brush her unnecessarily on their way past. She shivered. He turned 90 degrees and waited for her to squeeze past him for the open window. She obeyed, but paused to look back over her shoulder.

“You coming?”

He waved vaguely at the grill. “Once I’m sure this is all the way out.” He was still not looking at her. Felicity worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she climbed through the window.

“‘Kay.”

——————————————-

Dinner was subdued, the three of them—and now Roy—scattered about her kitchen eating pizza straight out of the box with Dig’s salad served up in her pink plastic cereal bowls. Felicity cleared her throat; the stuffy silence was making her skin crawl.

“Thanks for the pizza, John. It’s really tasty,” she said, just to break the tension. 

“Agreed.” Roy seemed to have lost his wariness of being around them now that he had a full stomach. He swallowed the last bite of his third slice and smirked wickedly. “I especially liked the—“ he waggled his eyebrows—“FIRE roasted peppers.”

Felicity glanced at him, surprised, and snorted at the mischievous glint in his eye. 

“I didn’t know you were practicing to be an arsonist, Blondie,” he teased.

“It’s my first step toward world domination,” she agreed, sitting back in her chair with a grin. “Today chickens, tomorrow the world.” 

Diggle’s shoulders hitched once in amusement, but Oliver didn’t react. Unless stone-faced chewing was a reaction, in which case it was a big one. 

“One burnt chicken to rule them all,” Roy continued.

Felicity laughed. “We need to prepare for the coming a-bawk-alypse.”

Even John was chuckling now, but Oliver looked like he wanted to punch something. He stood without a word and pushed in his chair. Roy’s eyes followed him as he left the room and headed for the front door. Felicity shot a concerned look at John.

“Where you headed, Oliver?” he asked.

“Out,” came the reply, followed by the door closing. 

The three remaining quaranteamers shared a look.

————————————-

He’d been dreaming of the island—specifically running for his life through a field with explosions wrecking his senses—when the smoke from Felicity’s grilling disaster entered his consciousness and brought him upright with a gasp. It took seven steps to get to the kitchen window, a thing he knew because he automatically counted whenever he familiarized himself with a new space. 

And he always remembered.

The sight of her face lit up by the dangerous and artificial light of the grill fire had stopped Oliver’s heart for longer than he’d like to admit. He’d probably overreacted, being all growly and protective, but in the moment he was too busy reconciling his barely-concealed terror with the thought that Felicity Smoak was dangerous. Not kitchen-ineptitude dangerous—though they were going to have a chat about that sooner or later too—dangerous as a focus-pull he couldn’t seem to shake. His mother, Thea, Laurel: he could compartmentalize his feelings for them when necessary to do what he needed, but Felicity...

She was a light he was beginning to crave like air, and as a man who had once almost drowned, this was a very big thing to sincerely mean. Just a few days before, his shock at seeing Sara again had caused him to say his five years away were filled with nothing good, but that wasn’t exactly true. He remembered a moment outside his mother’s office, hiding behind a filing cabinet with his brain screaming for him to take a risk and leave her some kind of message, when a babbling blonde wandered in and unknowingly made him smile. 

He’d forgotten the moment eventually, until the day of his post-island return to QC with his mother and Walter. He’d run into a blonde in glasses coming off the elevator, and for a second he thought it was her; his mystery office girl. From that hour on he’d been determined to find her, and the day he tracked Felicity Smoak down in an IT office and asked her to crack Deadshot’s laptop, his life had changed forever. 

Oliver swung a leg off his bike outside the Foundry and stood for a moment, looking at the darkened windows of a building shuttered tight because of a pandemic. Maybe this was the way he should be, moving forward: shuttered. It was safer. 

He let himself into the building and shut the door tight, quiet and alone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m sure you’ve all despaired ever hearing from me again; COVID circumstances have led me back into full time employment, which doesn’t leave me much time (or creative headspace) to write. But ta da! An update and the finale of my little pandemic caper. 
> 
> Your comments brighten my day, thank you all so much. Our fandom is epic. ❤️

Sara was back again. She was here a lot now, sparring with the guys, or doing some kind of high level ninja yoga that probably ended in assassinating your instructor once you’d mastered all the forms. Felicity pretended not to watch her from over the top of her glasses while she and Oliver duked it out on the training mat. “Duking” maybe wasn’t the correct terminology for bo staff fighting, but based on the frown of concentration on his face and the smirk on hers, it seemed appropriate.

“They say a vaccine by early next year is a distinct possibility.”

Felicity nearly jumped through the ceiling at John’s voice. He was enough of a gentleman not to mention it, but Roy was a different story. He chuckled darkly.

“Distracted much?” He plopped his jean-clad backside on her computer desk as he swung a bag of Big Belly at her. Felicity took one look at his disposable mask pulled under his chin and wondered if she’d have to give another lecture on proper mask compliance. The handmade signs she’d left all over the Foundry and her apartment weren’t having an impact.

“Ugh. Thanks.” She decided to ignore that problem for the moment and turned her attention to Dig. “Who’s working on it?” 

John was still standing, rummaging through his own bag for his sandwich. “Kord Industries is taking a stab at it.”

“Mmf,” Felicity said around her first bite of fries. “They’re probably high fiving each other over acquiring Merlyn Global earlier this year.”

“Merlyn Global had a pharmaceutical division?” That was Roy, who sometimes surprised her with an astute question when she didn’t think he was following a conversation at all. 

“Malcolm Merlyn had his hands in almost everything.”

THAT was Oliver, and for the second time in five minutes Felicity startled. Did he have to be so damn silent? And sweaty? The good kind of sweaty, too, not gross and smelly. It was not fair. 

“You don’t know the half of it.” Sara was just as quiet, plus she was smaller. She shifted her weight and appeared from behind Oliver’s back in time to reluctantly accept a bag of fast food from Diggle. 

“Thanks, but I...” the paper rattled in protest as she clenched her fist. Felicity watched her eyes flick to Oliver’s in some unspoken conversation before she continued. “I haven’t...it’s been awhile since I’ve had greasy food. I don’t know if I’m ready. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Diggle took the bag back and set it on the table in one smooth motion. “I should’ve asked. Didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“It won’t go to waste,” Roy assured her. 

“There’s leftovers in the fridge,” Oliver informed Sara quietly with a turn of his head. She nodded once and walked away, and Felicity spent a strange moment watching Oliver watch another woman. It wasn’t like the Helena days—though by the time Felicity had walked into that mess the two of them were already on the outs—but it felt familiar all the same. Like she was on the outside again, merely observing instead of participating. It hurt, though he’d done nothing to her personally.

“You alright?”

Three for three on the jump scares, then. Fabulous. She shifted her focus from the middle of his shirtless torso to his face.

“What? Yeah. Fine.”

Whatever. 

Felicity swiveled away to her desk, but not before she caught Oliver flicking a glance to John. 

———————————

Sara went out with them that night, staff over her shoulder and shorter than the boys by a head as they all clanged up the stairs into the vacant club. Felicity swiveled idly in her chair and stared at her manicure, because even Dig had tagged along, leaving her alone in the modern day equivalent of a crows nest. She’d already opened the comms, so she heard everything: The debate over travel times, Roy’s snark, the slam of the van doors and the rumble of the engine.

Oliver’s offer to take Sara with him on the bike. 

That one hurt. It had sort of been a low key fantasy of Felicity’s to get a ride on the bike. She once again cursed her decision to turn Oliver down that first night of the lockdown because she wanted to carry all her junk home. Never mind that they lived together now—platonically—there was something about the idea of wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning in sync with his body that seemed more intimate than any roommate situation. 

“Felicity?” His voice in her ear brought her back to the sad reality of her life. “Sara will be with me. Whatcha got?”

The sad, sad reality. She tried not to let the disappointment show in her voice as she answered. 

————————————

Two nights later, and they were finally getting somewhere. Felicity cleared her throat around a sudden tickle and let her fingers fly over the keyboard. 

“This is it, boys,” she announced triumphantly. “And girl. Sorry, Sara.”

“S’okay. Just happy to finally be getting the bastards,” came the throaty reply. 

Felicity called up security cams from the surrounding buildings and zeroed in on the dark forms of Arrow and the Canary, their backs to her viewpoint as they waited to go. Another cam showed her Roy, plastered against the side of a building across the street, and a third could just pick up the right fender of the van with John stationed inside. Everyone was a go.

She pressed her palm to a bead of sweat in her hairline and engaged her mic again.

“Arrow, go on my signal...Now.”

Ten feet from Oliver’s position, the keypad on the security door they were staring at switched to green; Felicity watched him slip across the space with Sara at his back and open the door wide enough for them to squeeze through. 

“They’re in,” she croaked; it took a couple of coughs to get her voice back.

“You alright?” Dig questioned.

“Fine. Be ready. Arsenal? You’re up.”

This ambush had been almost a month in the making, but good intel and a little bit of luck had led them to this warehouse and a potentially huge drug bust. The monitors swam in front of her for a second, but she blinked away the feeling and went to work directing her team through the building. 

“Two on your right,” she warned Oliver, a second before bodies swarmed him.

“That’s four,” Sara corrected, surprise plain in her voice as she stepped in to engage.

“You’re right. Sorry.” Felicity blinked furiously and kept checking the warehouse cams. Her team and the goons tumbled down the hall toward the giant open space of the warehouse floor; it was hard to follow the action on choppy security cameras, but she was pretty sure the good guys were getting the upper hand, even outnumbered.

Roy spoke up on comms, making her switch focus to his set of cameras; he’d gotten himself into a scrap with three big thugs on the opposite side of the building.

“Dig, we need you.” Her voice sounded thready in her own earpiece.

“Copy that.” 

She was really sweaty now, and rolled her shoulders to try to unstick her cotton shirt from her back. On the cams Oliver and Sara finished putting down their attackers and stepped into the bright overhead lights of the main floor. Two factions of drug dealers were surrounding a large pallet shrink-wrapped in plastic.

“That would be the drugs,” she supplied helpfully, or what she meant to supply. What came out was “Thaaaa...” before her eyes unfocused. And then Oliver’s gruff Arrow voice was saying her name quietly but insistently. She swallowed hard and tried again. “I’m here.”

She knew her answer didn’t sound convincing to anybody.

She wanted to lay her head in her arms for just a minute to catch her breath, but the drug lord convention had finally noticed the cavalry had arrived, and the action was picking up. Roy and Dig appeared just as Oliver fired his first exploding arrow into the pallet of drugs, and then the party officially began. 

The next few minutes were a blur, and not just because of the fighting. Reality seemed to shift and shiver for Felicity, making her think she was engaged in the battle for one minute, but a blink later time had jumped forward and left her scrambling to catch up. 

“Felicity!” Oliver’s shout in her earpiece made her jump. 

“Sorry. Wha’?”

“One of the bosses got away. Canary and I are in pursuit.”

She blinked furiously, but the monitor wouldn’t hold steady. She...just...needed...a...minute...

The rev of the motorcycle didn’t register, nor the screech of metal on asphalt when the bike went down three minutes later. 

——————————-

John was prodding her arm and saying her name over and over, and that was the next time jump. Felicity thought she was still helping the team, but the screen in front of her was all sideways, and her right arm was numb from holding the weight of her very heavy head.

“Felicity? There you are.”

And then his big arms were wrapping around her and the world was tilting further sideways in a not-fun way; she moaned in protest but he shushed her.

“You need to be in bed.” His voice rumbled through his chest into her ear, but she couldn’t even appreciate it; she was already out. 

———————————

Metal crumpling under the weight of humans was possible with enough velocity and force and the right angle. There was a formula for it—she was really good at formulas—but none of them would cooperate and form properly in her head.

“Dig,” she whispered, her mouth exceedingly dry, “Oliver. The bike...”

John’s voice was above her. “They had a little mishap, but they’ll be fine.” 

She drifted out again before she could ask to see him.

———————————

Fever dreams were the worst. Sometimes she was living in a suburban neighborhood, in a bright and cheerful house. Her boyfriend would come in from a morning run, and she would be making breakfast. The boyfriend was Oliver, and he would smile at her like she was the center of his universe. And right in the middle of the love scene she’d find herself on an alien spaceship, or fighting Nazis, or alone. Alone, alone, alone. Rolling instead of walking, trapped and needing him to rescue her and make everything better. Even when she could hear his voice, low and constant, she couldn’t reach him. No matter how warm and cozy the good dreams were, the dark, alone dreams were stronger. They pulled her under and bade her give in. Give up. Let go...

———————————

The last of the dreams drifted away slowly, like mist burning off a pond. Felicity was conscious of light glowing through the skin of her eyelids; she knew it would hurt to open her eyes, it had been that long. She drifted in and out for another few minutes, putting off the inevitable, before getting up the courage to have a look. 

Sara’s face was the first thing she saw.

“Hey,” Sara said. Her mouth softened into a lopsided smile, and she reached out to brush a piece of hair from Felicity’s face. “We weren’t sure you were coming back.”

“Did I go somewhere?” Her own voice was a croak.

Sara laughed, and Felicity thought maybe it was the first time she’d ever heard that particular sound. “You’re cute,” Sara said. 

Felicity let her eyes fall shut again, already exhausted, but a far off memory gave her a jolt of unease.

“The bike. You and Oliver...”

“Yeah, we crashed. But it didn’t do any lasting harm.” 

Felicity opened her eyes in time to catch Sara waving a bandaged wrist in her line of sight. 

She swallowed hard to try getting her tongue unglued from the roof of her mouth. “Oliver?”

Sara turned her head to glance at the bedroom doorway. “He’s here. Roy went to get him.”

Felicity followed her gaze and realized she was in her own bedroom, although everything about it was weird. The desk Oliver had moved in for her was gone; in its place there were lots of beeping machines, and the kind of white cart that you’d see in a doctors office. Her bed wasn’t the same either. It was one of those adjustable kinds, the ones they had commercials for, the kind you bought if you were old, or because you wanted to be able to eat soup in bed, maybe—

And then he was at the door, looking both better and worse than she could ever imagine. He was in street clothes—fabulous—but the bags under his eyes and the grayness of his skin made him look 50 years old—bad, but still pretty hot, because, well, it was—

“Oliver.”

He froze for a second, just stopped dead like someone had pushed a button and returned him to his factory settings. Then he smiled.

“Hey.”

She thought he might stay like that forever, stuck in the doorway to her bedroom with one arm braced against the door frame, but Sara stood and backed away as he pushed off the wall and took the two steps necessary to bring him to her side.

He lowered himself into the chair next to the bed; it was one of her kitchen chairs, Felicity realized, and it looked wildly out of place now that she was aware of its presence. But that was quickly forgotten when Oliver scooped up her hand from the blanket and held it between both of his like he did this exact thing on the daily. Embarrassed, she glanced up to gauge Sara’s reaction, but the room was empty; they were alone.

“You’re back,” he whispered, less reassurance than wonder in his voice.

Felicity’s forehead crinkled. “People keep saying that. Was there reason to doubt?”

There must’ve been something in the way she said it that convinced him she was truly okay, because a weight seemed to lift from his shoulders in that moment.  
“You were pretty sick.”

“Did I get it? The virus?”

He nodded.

Felicity looked around, concerned. “Should you be here? Where’s your mask?”

Oliver smiled again, both soft and tired. “Felicity, relax. You’re not contagious anymore. And anyway,” he sat back just a little and readjusted his position on the hard chair, “we’d already been exposed by the time you started showing symptoms.”

“Did anyone else...”

“Get it? Roy was a little under the weather. Dig had a bit of a cough. Nothing like what you went through.”

“So everyone’s better?”

“Felicity.” He chuckled through her name. “Stop worrying about everyone else. We’re fine.” 

Roy appeared in the doorway. “We’re headed to the Foundry to work out. Just lettin’ you know.” He turned almost immediately and disappeared.

Felicity wanted to call out after him, but she was suddenly exhausted. She might be okay, but she sure wasn’t great. Her eyelids slipped closed despite her best efforts.

“Hey,” Oliver said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You should rest. You have a ways to come back.”

She smiled, but she was already drifting off. “If that’s your way of telling me I look terrible, you should check a mirror.”

He huffed a laugh. “I could use a nap.”

“Mmph.” Felicity used the last of her energy to shift herself an inch to the left. Sleep was pulling her under, making her feel both heavy and floaty. “Plenty...room.”

She wasn’t aware of him settling his weight onto the mattress and stretching out next to her, but her unconscious self snuggled up to his side all the same.

——————————-

If the team came back and found them cuddling in her hospital bed nobody mentioned it, and by the time she was fully awake again Oliver was gone. 

John was keeping her company in the meantime; Felicity figured the kiss he’d given her forehead when he entered the room probably advanced her recovery by a week, at least.

“He really said that?”

John nodded. “He really did. I wish you could’ve seen Isabel’s face on that computer screen.”

Felicity laughed, feeling stronger by the minute. “Why would she think Oliver would sign his half of the company over to her just because his EA was out sick?”

“That’s what we said. She claimed it would only be temporary, but we all know how far you can trust that woman.” John shook his head. “I’ve never seen Oliver work so hard. He kept the company running by sheer stubbornness.”

Felicity looked down to fuss with the edge of her blanket. “I still don’t know why you kept me here instead of putting me in the hospital.”

“Because Oliver wouldn’t have it. You would’ve been in isolation, and he couldn’t stand the thought of you being alone. So he brought the hospital here.”

“But...how did he talk a doctor into going along with this?”

Diggle sat back and crossed his arms with a wink. “Oliver didn’t. But the Arrow was very persuasive.”

——————————

A week went by before Felicity really started to feel recovered, and even then a trip from the bed to the bathroom left her winded. The team had resumed their nighttime activities, now that Oliver could be persuaded to leave her bedside long enough to suit up. 

“Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.” Oliver closed the book and smiled softly. “That’ll have to do it for today. I promised to spar with Sara before we go out tonight.”

Felicity sighed but nodded her understanding. The first time Oliver offered to read his favorite book to her she’d almost laughed out loud. What kind of book could it possibly be? The mind boggled. But she’d come to love their time together like this, in the space between dinner and their night job. The virus had taken a lot out of her, and sometimes she could only lie back and close her eyes and try to feel the words as he said them, but just listening to the sound of his voice made her feel stronger and more confident of her recovery.

With a rap of knuckles on the door frame, Roy’s head appeared in the room.

“You decent?”

Felicity smoothed the covers under her fingers and smiled. He nodded back once, his way of checking on her, before Sara brushed by him to enter the room. She had a soft, almost secret, smile on her face. 

“Ready?”

Sara said it like she wasn’t impatient; like it wouldn’t bother her if Oliver stayed and kept reading out loud all night. Felicity was so overcome with gratitude she couldn’t meet the other woman’s eyes.

“We really miss you,” Sara added to her with a tip of her head. “Roy is terrible on comms.”

“Yeah, well Roy doesn’t enjoy it that much either,” the man himself deadpanned while studying his fingernails. Everyone laughed, including Oliver; Felicity stared at his face lit up with a grin longer than she should’ve, it seemed so foreign. 

Roy’s phone went off and interrupted the moment. He pushed away from the wall where he’d been leaning and melted from the room.

“Dig’s staying with you,” Oliver said quietly. His head was turned as he set the book on her nightstand, so Felicity stole an extra moment to gaze at his perfect profile. Dig stayed with her every night, now that the team was back in action. They occasionally consulted with her, but mostly their night job went on without her backing them up from the Foundry. Oliver was adamant that she get as much rest as possible.

He turned back to her with a smile, looking for all the world like he’d rather stay and read Homer than chase bad guys. Even Roy’s hurried return to her room didn’t make him get up.

“That was Thea,” Roy began. “She says you need to call her. Apparently your mother has decided to run for Mayor?” Roy shrugged when Oliver turned his gaze on him. “Something about some rich Australian offering to fund her campaign.”

Oliver did that little head shake thing that told Felicity he wasn’t sure what to say. She caught his hand to give it a squeeze and grinned tiredly.

“We’ll figure it out. You’d better go.”

He smiled back, a sweet, indulgent lift of the corners of his mouth that made her tilt her chin up to follow his progress as he stood to leave her. 

“What would I do without you?” he asked softly, and—seemingly without thought—leaned back down and pecked her on the lips. They both stilled, inches from each other, frozen in surprise and wondering what the other was thinking. 

It was Sara who broke the spell.

“Looks like you won the pool, Diggle,” she called back through the doorway.

Everyone heard his “Hot damn!” drift from Felicity’s living room.

Oliver’s face seemed to relax, but he didn’t stop gazing into her eyes. Felicity swallowed audibly.

“I’ll see you later,” he promised.

She nodded, wide-eyed with wonder.

“Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

Felicity willed away the butterflies swirling in her stomach. 

“Don’t forget to wear your mask,” she whispered.


End file.
